Mr. Townsend was shaving himself. Advancing his face an inch or two nearer his shaving-glass, with his fingers he smoothed his chin.
"Very awkward," he said. "Very!"
The allusion could scarcely have been to the process in which he was engaged. Everything had gone with smoothness. Not even a scratch had marred the perfect peace.
Mr. Townsend concluded that his chin was as clean shaven as it possibly could be. He put his razor down. He took up a cigarette. He lighted it.
"Exceedingly awkward!"
As he murmured the iteration, seating himself in an armchair, he selected an open letter from among a heap of others which lay on a little table at his side. The letter he had selected was unmistakably a feminine production. It was written in a large, bold, running hand, on paper which was as stiff as cardboard.
"My Dearest Reggie,--You must come and see me! At once! I shall expect you this morning!
"Whatever you have done, it it quite impossible that I shall let you go--you are mine!
"You understand that I am waiting for you, and that you are to come to me as soon as you possibly can.
"You are to tell the bearer when I shall see you!
"Your Dora."
That was what the letter said. The italics and the notes of exclamation were the lady's own. As he puffed his cigarette Mr. Townsend read the letter carefully through and smiled. Removing his cigarette, he pressed the letter to his lips. Then, carefully folding the letter between his fingers, he laid it down.
"As I said I would go, I shall have to go--it's uncommonly awkward. Had she been wise, she would have taken what I wrote as the final word, and left it so."
Rising, he continued his toilet, humming to himself, now and then, snatches of a popular comic song. Going to the fireplace, he began pushing about, with the toe of his shoes, the pieces of burning coal.
"It's odd how I love her--very! After my experience. And this time, as the man says in the play, it is love. Well, she has called the stakes. It is for me to win. If I don't, I can but lose."
He returned to the table on which the letters were. He picked up another, also unmistakably the production of a feminine hand. It contained but a line or two. It was without prefix or signature. And this time the writing was small and fine and clear:--
"I have heard nothing from you. The eight-and-forty hours will be up this afternoon at five. After that time I shall feel it my duty to do my utmost at once to save the life of an innocent man. I shall be at home to you till five."
Mr. Townsend read this epistle also with a smile, but he did not press it to his lips when read. Instead, he commented on it with a curious sort of humour.
"You pretty dear! You are the dangerous sort that always smiles. I have heard and read a good deal about women being cleverer than men, but till I met you I never met my match."
Tearing the letter into pieces, he dropped the fragments among the burning coals. As he adjusted his necktie before a looking-glass he indulged himself with further snatches of that comic song. Having completed his toilet, he went into the adjoining room. In response to his ring breakfast was brought in. And, with every appearance of the satisfaction of the man whose conscience is perfectly at ease, Mr. Townsend sat down to the discussion of his morning meal.
As he was finishing, a manservant opened the door.
"Lord Archibald Beaupré, sir, wishes to see you."
"Show him in here."
Presently there entered a tall, thin, and rather weedy-looking young man. His scanty hair was of that colourless fairness which is almost peculiar to a certain type of Scotchman. He would not have been bad-looking, in spite of his being slightly freckled, if it had not been for three things: first, he had obviously at least his share of the pride for which his countrymen are proverbial; second, he was obviously more than sufficiently weak; and third, he was equally obviously bad tempered.
On this occasion he did not seem to be by any means in the most agreeable frame of mind. Taking no sort of notice of Mr. Townsend's nodded greeting, he marched straight to an easy-chair, and, sitting down on it, he rested his hands on the handle of his stick, and his chin on his hands. He looked straight in front of him with about as sour a visage as he could well have worn. Mr. Townsend continued his breakfast as if there was nothing at all peculiar in his visitor's demeanour, and as he ate he smiled.
After a while he leaned back on his chair.
"Well, Archie, any news?"
"News be damned!"
Mr. Townsend still smiled.
"By all means if you wish it. It is the same to me."
"You know very well what I have come for."
"I take it that you have come to bestow on me for a short period the charm of your society." The visitor scowled. His host but smiled the more. "Have anything to eat?"
"I'll have something to drink."
"You'll find all the ingredients on the sideboard. Help yourself, dear boy."
The visitor helped himself. As he stood at the sideboard pouring the liquor out into a glass his host sat watching him with amusement which was wholly unconcealed. The contrast between the two men was striking. It would have forced itself on to the attention of the most casual spectator. The one weak, irritable almost to the point of peevishness; the other strong, unruffled, self-contained. The one with, in his whole bearing, that suggestion of self-assertion which is often but the child of shyness, but which none the less repels; the other with that easy, graceful, seemingly unconscious, personal magnetism which, in spite of oneself, attracts. One could understand how the one might be forgiven till seventy times seven, while the other would be condemned, without benefit of clergy, for his first offence.
Lord Archibald Beaupré returned to the easy-chair, armed with a tumbler of whisky and soda. He took a considerable drink. And then he spoke--morosely.
"It's the meeting of that cursed club to-night."
Mr. Townsend had watched his every movement, particularly seeming to note the quantity he had drunk--and still he smiled.
"So it is."
The other burst into a torrent of words.
"I wish I had never heard of it! I wish I had never had anything to do with it! I wish I had never had anything to do with any one of you! I wish----"
His emotions proved too much for him; he prematurely stopped.
"Wish it out." Mr. Townsend was lighting a cigarette. "And when you've wished it out, what then?"
"Damn you. You do nothing else but jibe and jeer at me."
"My dear Archie, your manners are not good."
"Curse my manners!"
"By all means, if you wish it. Only I am inclined to think there won't be very much to curse."
Lord Archibald ground out an oath between his teeth, and he groaned. Mr. Townsend went on; he was enjoying his cigarette.
"By the way, have you done anything for the Honour of the Club?"
His visitor half rose from his seat, then sank back into it again.
"No! You know I haven't! Don't talk of it! No!"
"I have no desire to talk of it. It is scarcely a question of talk. It is rather a question of do."
His hearer covered his face with his hands and shuddered. There was something in his host's eyes, as he smilingly regarded him, which suggested possibilities--and also limitations--of a distinctly curious sort. He kept his glance fixed on his companion, and, as he spoke again, he expelled through his nostrils the smoke of his cigarette.
"On the whole, perhaps, your policy of postponement may turn out fortunately for both of us. You will remember that under certain circumstances I reserved the right to nominate a candidate--a candidate, that is, for your attention. The circumstances which I thought might arise have arisen."
"Townsend!"
"Archie!"
Lord Archibald removed his hands from his face. The two men looked at each other--the one face ghastly, haggard, frightened; the other easy, careless, smiling.
"Do you mean it?"
Lord Archibald's voice was husky. Mr. Townsend flicked the ash from his cigarette.
"I am in the habit, in matters of moment, of meaning what I say, although that may not be the case with you."
The airily-suggested insinuation stung. The other burst into a sudden blaze of passion.
"What do you mean by that?"
The host met his visitor's furious gaze with a smile which seemed to convey a fulness of meaning which was sufficient to subdue the other's wrath.
"What did you mean by asking me if I meant what I said? Didn't you know?"
Lord Archibald turned his face away. Taking up the tumbler of soda and whisky he drained it of its contents. Getting up from his chair, he went to the sideboard to replenish. While he was in the act of doing so, and his back towards his host, he asked a question.
"Who is it?"
"A woman."
Lord Archibald spun round like a teetotum, a decanter in one hand, a tumbler in the other.
"A woman? Reggie? You--you don't mean Miss Jardine?"
Mr. Townsend's lips curled. In some subtle way his countenance was transfigured. The ease and the carelessness vanished. He became all bitterness and gall.
"Beaupré, I am inclined to think that you are the most consummate ass of my acquaintance. Why will you perpetually harp upon a single string? You are so utterly inept that the wonder is I have borne with you so long. Might I ask you not eternally to play the fool?"
Lord Archibald put down the decanter and the glass. The muscles of his face quivered as if he was about to be afflicted by an attack of St. Vitus' Dance.
"If anybody but you had spoken to me like that, at the very least he should never speak to me again."
The only effect which his visitor's fury had on Mr. Townsend was to make him still more scornful.
"Don't gas to me, my good fellow. Reserve that sort of thing for some other of your acquaintance. I regret that you should have rendered it necessary for me to remind you that you are under a considerable obligation to me, and I regret still more that you should have compelled me to ask if it is your intention to fulfil that obligation. I believe that even Scotchmen do occasionally fulfil their obligations."
His listener's face was a sickly yellow. Rage had made him calm.
"Mr. Townsend, be so good as to tell me who this woman is."
Thus requested, Mr. Townsend, scribbling something on a scrap of paper, tossed the scrap of paper across the table to his guest.
"There is her name and her address. I took you with me once to call on her. Probably you remember the occasion and the lady. Your business with her must be transacted before five o'clock this afternoon. If you are a quarter of an hour after that time you may as well postpone the fulfilment of your obligation to a future day. For my purpose you will be too late."
The other scanned what was written on the scrap of paper. He folded the paper up; he placed it in his waistcoat-pocket.
"You shall have the literal letter of your bond. Afterwards, Mr. Townsend, I will deal with you."
Without another word Lord Archibald Beaupré left the room.
Left to himself, Mr. Townsend threw the end of his cigarette into the fire. Thrusting his hands into his trouser-pockets, stretching out his legs in front of him, he stared at the flame and he smiled--not pleasantly.
"What a fool the fellow is! I have had about as much of him as I can stand. Indeed, I have had more. I hope they'll hang him. It will be a happy despatch. Or perhaps, after he has done the deed, he will turn, as a relief, to suicide. It's just the sort of thing he would do."
Something tickled him. He laughed.
"What a game of touch and go I'm playing."
He stood up.
"To think that he should have supposed that I meant Dora. My Dora!"
A panel photograph was on the mantelboard. It was the portrait of a young girl. Mr. Townsend apostrophised it as if it had been a living thing.
"My darling! If you had only come into my life before, how different it might all have been! If fortune had but let you come my way, evil should not have been my good. There is the making of a man in me, somewhere, that I swear. If I could but get out of it all and shake myself free and begin again, I'd quickly prove it."
Taking the photograph into his hand, he kissed it. It was strange how tender his voice had suddenly become.
"My love! What thing is this which I have been consorting with all this time, and supposing it was love? That's not love. Bah! I have learnt my lesson rather late in the day, but I have learnt it, sweet. You have taught me what is love."
He put the portrait back. He sat down again. But he still looked at the face which was on the mantelboard.
"The place in which I am is such a tight one. You had been wiser, dear, had you believed me when I wrote that I was not fit for you, and so straightway have let me go. Again I'll endeavour to persuade you. But if you'll not be persuaded I will win you, and I will hold you, and I will keep you if I can, though to do so I have to plunge deeper in the mire. It may be, indeed, that that way atonement lies. Who knows?"
Mr. Townsend's rooms were at Albert Gate. Miss Jardine's home was in Sloane Gardens. From Albert Gate to Sloane Gardens is not very far. It was a clear, brisk morning. Mr. Townsend decided to walk.
Just as he had crossed the road some one touched his arm from behind, and a voice said--
"Excuse me--might I speak to you for a moment?"
Mr. Townsend turned. He supposed it was a beggar. The speaker looked like one. The man--it was a man--had on a top hat which was battered and bruised out of all semblance of its original shape. His overcoat, which was trimmed with imitation astrachan, was torn in half a dozen places and covered with mud, as if it had been rolled in the gutter with its owner inside it, but it was buttoned right up to his chin in a manner which suggested a not unnatural anxiety to conceal material deficiencies in the rest of his attire. His countenance bore evidence of having been recently subjected to serious ill-usage. One eye was ornamented by a purple patch, the skin of his right cheek was bruised and broken as by a blow from a fist, and his mouth was so badly cut as to say, the least, to render it highly inconvenient for him to be compelled to open his lips.
The sorry spectacle was Stewart Trevannion,aliasAlexander Taunton,aliasMr. Arthur Stewart,aliasa dozen other names--the immaculate Mr. Townsend's brother. A striking contrast the two brothers presented as they stood there.
Alexander was rubbing his hands over each other. He seemed to experience a difficulty in holding himself straight up. He shivered as if in pain.
"Reginald," he muttered.
Possibly Alexander was in a sensitive frame of mind. He seemed to shrink from the look of mingled amusement and scorn with which his brother regarded him.
"You!" Mr. Townsend's voice rang with laughter. "Well, my man, what do you want with me--charity?"
Alexander put up his hand, as if to hide his injured mouth.
"It isn't only that."
"No? What else is it then?"
"It's a word I want to say to you--a word of warning."
"Of warning? Against what?"
"Do you know a man named Haines--an American?"
"Haines?" Mr. Townsend reflected. "Well, what of Mr. Haines?"
"You've been doing something to his daughter--you best know what. He's found it out, and he's looking for you. If he gets a chance he'll kill you. He's almost done for me."
Mr. Townsend made a significant gesture in the direction of his brother.
"Is this his handiwork?"
"It's no laughing matter. I tell you he means murder. If you take my advice you'll clear. He left me as good as dead last night. He wouldn't have cared if he had left me quite. I don't believe I've a whole bone in my body. It's as much as I can do to stand." Alexander put his hand to his back and groaned. His tone became a whine. "You couldn't oblige me with the loan of a shilling or two?"
"With pleasure. I'll oblige you with the loan of a whole sovereign. If you take my advice you'll spend part of it on plaster. I'll think of what you've said. Good-day."
As he walked away Mr. Townsend swung his cane. He seemed amused. Alexander, clutching the sovereign tightly in his hand, stared after him. He did not seem to be at all amused.
"You may laugh now, but you won't laugh then. You've been up to some devil's trick, and this time you've caught the devil. If he does find you, one of you'll be missing."
As he pursued his way down Sloane Street, Mr. Townsend did not appear himself to regard his situation in such a serious light. The idea that there could be anything serious about it appeared to afford him nothing but amusement.
"Haines? Haines? I fancy that that's the name of Mrs. Carruth's Yankee friend. The dissenting parson sort of looking individual. I take it that Alexander, as usual, has the wrong end of the stick--from the look of him he appears to have felt both ends of it, and the middle too. If Mr. Haines has done me the honour to object to my behaviour, I imagine that it is because he supposes that I have poached on his preserve. I assure him he need be under no apprehension. If he only knew!"
Mr. Townsend laughed--then checked himself. He struck the ferrule of his stick against the pavement.
"Now, what am I to say to Dora? Its awkward--very!"
It was awkward. Especially as he had not made up his mind what to say to Dora, even when he found himself at Sir Haselton Jardine's.
He was shown at once into Miss Jardine's own sitting-room, and there he found the lady.
Miss Jardine was short and slight. Although she was not handsome, she certainly was not bad-looking. Her appearance, her bearing, her movements suggested buoyancy, activity, health. Her eyes were her most characteristic possession. They affected different people in different ways. They were blue eyes. Their chief peculiarity was that they were light--some people said unnaturally light. But, as also they were beautiful eyes, that saying may be set down to malice. Somehow one felt as one looked at Miss Jardine that she would never cry.
She held out her hand to Mr. Townsend.
"Reggie!"
Mr. Townsend made no attempt to touch the outstretched hand. He merely bowed.
"Miss Jardine!"
Miss Jardine was not at all disconcerted. She laughed.
"So it's that way!" She assumed an air of mock dignity, which became her very well. "Mr. Townsend, may I offer you a chair?"
"With your permission I will stand."
Mr. Townsend spoke with an air of decorous propriety which approached the severe. The lady did not fall into his mood at all. She looked up at him with her sunny eyes.
"Stand! Why stand?"
Mr. Townsend returned the young lady's smiling glance, without evincing any inclination to smile in return.
"You have sent for me. I have come."
Going to the fireplace, Miss Jardine stood with one foot upon the kerb. Her hands were behind her back. Her face was inclined a little upwards. She reminded one somehow of a bird--a resemblance which owed something, perhaps, to the brightness of her eyes.
"I have one or two questions which I wish to ask you. You must answer them. First, Do you love me?"
"You must forgive my suggesting that that is scarcely the first question which you should ask me. The man in the street may love you. It does not follow that he is worthy."
"But if I love him?"
Mr. Townsend made a slight movement with his hands. He was standing in what, to the average Englishman, is a rather trying position--in the centre of the room, away from any article of furniture, with his arms hanging loosely at his sides; and yet he looked well.
"He may love you. You may love him. And yet any connection with him may bring you, at the best, unhappiness."
"You have not answered my question. Do you love me?"
"You know that I do."
"As you say, I know that you do. You know also that I love you. My second question, Are you married?"
"I am not."
"Then why should you not marry me? Stay! Let me explain my position."
His eyes became, if anything, brighter. Something came over her which made one forget how physically small she was. One realised that the girl, like the man she was addressing, had a magnetic personality of her own.
"I am, in a measure, Reggie--I am going to call you Reggie--what it is the fashion to call a pessimist. It is my father's dower. I am afraid that, in a sense, from the men of my acquaintance, I always expect the worst. I believe most of them do, in their youth, many things which they ought not to do--and for which, in their age, they are sorry. I take this for granted. And I believe that, in spite of this being so, some of them make good husbands and good fathers. I think it possible that your temptations have been greater than is the case with the average man, and that, therefore, your misdoings have been more. But I am convinced that, as regards real strength, you are stronger than the average man, and that you can, if you like, put these things behind you for ever--and, on the stepping-stones of your dead self, rise to higher things. And I believe that you will like, because you love me--and because, also, I love you."
"Unfortunately, Miss Jardine----"
She made an imperious gesture with her hand.
"Call me Dora. With you, now, it shall not be Miss Jardine."
"Unfortunately"--there was an almost imperceptible pause, and then there came very softly the Christian name--"Dora, there are things which, when they are once done, we cannot put away. They meet us at Philippi."
"If in your life there are such ghosts, why did you ask me to marry you?"
"I ought not to have done. When I did I hoped that I should be able to lay the ghosts, and that for me there would be no Philippi."
"But is there no hope now?" He seemed to hesitate. She went on with, in her voice, a sudden tremor. "Consider! Think well before you speak! Reggie, I wonder if you know how much the spoiling of your life will mean the spoiling of mine?"
Her voice, or her manner, or her words--or all three combined--affected Mr. Townsend strangely. There seemed to be something in her glance which he found himself unable to encounter. He turned away. Going to him, she touched him softly on the arm. A shudder went all over him. The muscles of his face seemed to stiffen; his expression became a little set. His voice also became, as it were, a little rigid.
"There may be hope."
"There may be? Reggie!" She paused--as if breathless. "Of laying the ghosts--for ever?"
"For ever."
She was still again. Her articulation seemed to be actually impeded.
"When will you know--for sure?"
"This afternoon, at five."
"Reggie!" His words appeared to take her by surprise. "Do you mean it--really?"
"I do."
He turned and looked at her. Their glances met. She shrank away from him. The hot blood flowed into her cheeks. Her emotion was so great, it made her beautiful. His name came from her lips, with a catching of her breath, and in a whisper. She was visibly trembling.
"Reggie!"
It was plain that Mrs. Carruth was impatient. Nor was the thing made less evident by her attempts to conceal it from herself. She lounged on a couch. A pile of books and magazines was at her side. She pretended to read--or, rather, it would be more correct to write that she tried not to pretend to read. But it would not do. It was nothing but pretence. And she knew that it was nothing but pretence. She took up a book. She turned a page or two. She put it down again. She exchanged it for a magazine--a magazine with pictures. She tried to look at the pictures. The pictures palled. She essayed a magazine without pictures.
That was as great a failure as the other. In her present mood the ministrations of print and pictures alike were ineffectual.
No wonder she had become impatient. She had been on tenterhooks all day--waiting! waiting! All the morning she had expected to receive some sort of communication--some acknowledgment of the expressive line or two which she had sent. But when lunch came, and there still was nothing, she was quite sure that, during the afternoon the gentleman would come himself.
She was ready for him by two. She did not think it likely that he would come quite so early. Still, it would be well that she should not be taken unawares. So she made herself even unwontedly charming. She put on a brand-new dress, which suited her to perfection. It really did make her look uncommonly nice! It fitted her so well that it displayed her long, lithe, and yet by no means unbecomingly bony figure, to the best advantage. She took astonishing pains with her hair. She even went in for unusual splendour in the way of shoes and stockings. And the effect produced by the few touches which she bestowed upon her countenance was wonderful.
In spite of all she was ready by two. And still--he cometh not, she said. The silvery chimes of the exquisite little clock which stood on the top of the overmantel announced that it was three-quarters after three. She looked at her own watch to see if it really was so late. The thing was true enough. Her watch was in complete agreement with the clock--it was a quarter to four.
She put down the last of the magazines with, in her manner, an appearance of finality. She rose from the couch. She went to the window. She stood there with her fingertips drumming idly and noiselessly against the pane. The only creature in sight was a milkman, who, by way of killing two birds with one stone, was serving a customer across the road, and flirting with the maid. Mrs. Carruth watched the flirtation proceed to its conclusion, and, when the milkman, springing into his cart, had disappeared with the inevitable clatter, Mrs. Carruth, turning away from the window, came back into the room.
She stood at a little centre table. She laughed to herself.
"If, after all, he shouldn't come--what fun it would be!"
She was very far from being an ill-looking woman, as she stood there, with smiles puckering her lips and peeping from her eyes.
"If he should suppose that I am not in earnest! His experience may teach him that many women never are in earnest. If he should imagine that I am one of the many!"
Raising her right hand, she began daintily pinching her lower lip between her finger and her thumb.
"It would be a pity for both of us." She made a little impatient movement with her head. "And yet, I can't believe that a man with his experience could suppose that I am one of the many. If he did, it would be his fault--not mine."
The little clock struck four.
"An hour more, my friend--an hour more. And then--well, I do hope you'll come before the hour's out, for your sake, as well as mine. I wonder if, in this little matter, I've been counting my chickens before they're hatched. I, of all women, should have known better. And, with such a hand faced on the board, one might be excused for supposing that it would take the pool. A straight flush cannot be beaten."
She laughed again, this time not quite so lightly.
"It reminds me of some of the games which I have seen played. You can't show a hand to beat a straight, but you can fight to save the pool. I wonder if he means fighting. If he does, it'll be against all the odds. He has neither gun nor bow. When I start shooting, he's bound to drop. Sure."
The merriment passed from her face, the laughter from her eyes--an expression of anxiety came into them instead; a look which suggested hunger, a something which made her, all at once, seem actually old.
"Perhaps he takes it that a victory, on these lines, may mean more than a defeat. And he counts on that. It would, too. It would mean farewell--a long farewell, an actual farewell--to another of my dreams. And the brightest of them all. But I don't care. It would mean death to him. Death! And such a death! And, after all, it would only mean a stumble to me. From the practice I have had, I have become so used to stumbles that surely one other wouldn't count."
She began moving about the room restlessly, touching here a table, there a chair, to the window, and back again, as if a spirit possessed her which made her not know what it was she wanted to be at. She approached a corner of the room, as if she were about to take refuge in it, like some naughty child. As she went, clenching her fists, as if she were pressing her finger-nails into her palms, she gave a little cry.
"Oh, I'd give--I'd give, what wouldn't I give?--if he'd come into the room, now--without keeping me waiting any longer, now!--and speak to me as I would have him speak! Why doesn't he come? He has everything to gain, he has nothing to lose!"
She swept right round, with a swish of her skirts, in a sort of frenzy, echoing her own question as she swung out her arms in front of her.
"Why doesn't he come?"
Even as the words were on her lips, at the hall door there came a knocking. She went red and white, despite the aids of beauty! She caught at a chair, as if desirous of having something to lean against.
"Thank God!"
Then, as if conscious of the incongruity of such words upon her lips, she put her hands up to her face.
"Oh, I'm so glad he's come!"
Some one outside had hold of the handle of the door. She uncovered her face. She touched her hair. She touched the bosom of her dress. She dropped into the chair by which she was standing. In an instant she was the picture of composure.
The door opened to admit Mr. Haines.
His appearance was a shock to Mrs. Carruth. She looked negligently round, as if indifferent who the new-comer might be, and then--she stared.
"You!"
There was something in the lady's intonation which was very far from being complimentary. She stood up, quivering with disappointment and with rage.
"I thought I gave instructions that this afternoon I was not at home to visitors."
Mr. Haines did not seem to be at all nonplussed.
"That's what the young lady who opened the door told me. I said I would wait until you were. I will."
Mr. Haines sat down--with every appearance of having come to stay. Mrs. Carruth looked at the clock, then at her watch, then at the gentleman upon the chair. The gentleman in question, with his head thrown back, was staring at the ceiling, as if quite unconscious of her neighbourhood. It seemed to be as much as the lady could do to retain her self-control.
"I am sure, Mr. Haines, that you cannot wish to be rude. I have an appointment this afternoon which I regret will prevent my having the pleasure of receiving you."
"I'm going to have my say. I'll say it afterwards, or I'll say it now. It's all the same to me."
"What do you mean by you're going to have your say?"
"If you're ready, I'll let it out. But don't mind me. Don't let me spoil your appointment. Keep anything you've got to keep."
Mrs. Carruth seemed to be at a loss to know what to do. Her looks were eloquent witnesses as to what she would have done if she could. But, apparently, she did not see her way to do it. She temporised.
"If there is anything of importance, Mr. Haines, which you wished to say to me, perhaps you will be so good as to say it as briefly as you can, now. Possibly it will not detain you, at the utmost, more than a quarter of an hour."
"Possibly it will not. I rather reckon you'll have a word to say in that. It won't all be for me." Mr. Haines brought his eyes down to the level of the lady's face. He spread out his hands upon his knees. He looked at her very straight. "What I have to say may be said in about two words. It's just this--I've found my girl."
Mrs. Carruth did not display any great amount of interest, but she did seem to be surprised.
"Indeed! I am glad to hear it. I hope that she is well."
"She is well. She's better than many of us ever will be. She's at rest."
"At rest? How?"
"As it was told to me. She is dead."
"Dead! Mr. Haines?"
"Yes, murdered. As I saw it in the vision, so it is."
Mrs. Carruth looked at Mr. Haines as if she felt that he had a somewhat singular method of imparting information--especially of such a peculiar kind.
"If what you say is correct, you have such a queer way of putting things. I never can quite make you out. I need not tell you how sorry I am."
"You have cause for sorrow. The grief is about half yours."
"Half mine? What do you mean?"
"I have loved you, true and faithful, since the first time I set eyes on you. Before ever Daniel did."
The sudden change of subject seemed, not unnaturally, to take the lady aback.
"What nonsense are you talking? What did you mean by saying the grief's half mine?"
"I'm coming to it, in time. I want to put to you this question. Will you have me, now, just as I am?"
"I will not; neither now or ever. How many more times am I to tell you that? Jack Haines, I do believe you're more than half insane."
"I may be. So'll you be before I'm through." Raising the big forefinger of his right hand, he wagged it at her solemnly. "There's some one come between us. Yes. That aristocrat."
"Aristocrat? What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean. Yes. The blood-stained Townsend. I knew he was stained with blood when first I saw him inside this room. But I did not know with whose blood he was stained, or I would have called him to his account right there and then. I did not know he was stained with the blood of my girl."
"Jack!"
The name came from her with an unconscious recurrence to the days which were gone.
"Yes. This is the man who has stolen what ought by rights to have been mine--the slayer of my girl."
"It's not true! You coward! You know you lie!"
"I do not lie."
"You do lie! What proof have you?"
"Enough and to spare--for him, for me, and for you."
"Out with it, then. Let's hear what some of it's like."
Mrs. Carruth was standing by the little centre table. Rising from his chair, Mr. Haines went and stood at the other side of it. Resting his hands on the edges, he leaned over it towards her.
"Have you heard of the Three Bridges tragedy?"
She looked at him just once. In that one look she saw something, on his face or in his eyes, which, to use an expressive idiom, seemed to take the stiffening all out of her. She dropped into a chair as if he had knocked her into it. She caught at the arms. Her complexion assumed a curious tinge of yellow. There was a moment's pause. Then, from between her rigid lips, there came one word.
"Yes."
"The woman who was killed was Loo--my Loo."
She shuddered, as if attacked by sudden ague.
"It's a lie!"
"It's not a lie. It's gospel truth. And Townsend killed her."
Her rejoinder, under ordinary circumstances, might have struck him as an odd one.
"You can't prove it."
"I can prove it. And the police can prove it, too."
Half rising from her chair, she turned to him, every muscle in her body seemed to be quivering with excitement.
"The police? Do they know it?"
"They do. To-morrow the whole world will know it. They've laid hold of the wrong man. They've found it out just before it's a bit too late. They hope to have hold of your friend Townsend soon. They're hoping wrong. His first reckoning will be with me. When that is through, neither he nor I will care who has what's left. Since I have loved you, true and faithful, all these years, I calculated I would come and ask you if, when all is done, you'd give me my reward. We might make a happy ending of it, you and me together, over on the other side. But if you won't, you won't. So I'm through. I've only one word left--good-bye."
He held out his hand to her. So far as she was concerned, it went unheeded. Indeed, it would seem, from the eager question which she asked, that most of what he had been saying had gone unheeded too.
"Are you sure the police are after him? Are you sure?"
He looked at her from under the shadow of his bushy, overhanging eyebrows, in silence, for a moment. Then he said, more in sorrow than in anger--
"So your last thought is of him? Well, I'm sorry!"
Without anymore elaborate leave-taking than was comprised in these few words. Mr. Haines went from the room and from the house.
Mrs. Carruth seemed scarcely conscious of the fact of his departure. All her faculties and all her thoughts seemed far away. Indeed, it was only after a lapse of some seconds that, looking about her, with a start, she appeared to recognise that she was alone. Getting up, she began to pace feverishly about the room, as if only rapid movement could enable her to control the fires which were mounting in her blood.
"I wonder if it's true! I wonder if it is! Perhaps that explains why it is he hasn't come. I may have been misjudging him. Perhaps he can't come. Suppose he is arrested. Perhaps he doesn't know what it is the police have discovered. He's nearly certain not to know. Who's to tell him? I will go and tell him! This instant! Now! I will warn him against the police and against Jack Haines. I will save him yet, yet. He shall owe it all to me."
With her hands she brushed her hair from her brow--the hair which she had so carefully arranged.
"After all I have longed for, after all I have lived through, I do believe that for him I should esteem the world well lost."
She ran upstairs--literally ran. She put on a coat and hat in a space of time which, for shortness, considering that a pretty woman was concerned, was simply marvellous. And having put them on, she ran down the stairs. She hurried through the hall. She opened the hall door.
And as she did so something or some one bounded up the steps--rather than mounted them in an ordinary fashion. There was a flash of something in the air. Mrs. Carruth was borne backwards.
A second afterwards she was lying half on her face, with the lifeblood streaming from her on to the floor.